Reviewing his biography — I hadn’t known who John Muir was, never having heard the name before. However, I saw people mentioning this as an excellent biography, and the nature theme appealed to me. For those who were in my shoes, John Muir was a very influential naturalist at the end of the 19th…

I have read Mukherjee’s “The Emperor of All Maladies” which deeply impressed me with his skillful writing, engaging narrative, and interplay of science and human relationships. When I discovered he had a short book, I couldn’t help but get it. Science has laws, but while medicine is based on science…

Reviewing the book ‘Life 3.0‘ by By Max Tegmark — I’ve always looked at books regarding artificial intelligence with some suspicion. They often seem to have a very futuristic pop-science feel to them and ignore the more technical aspects of AI. I was happy to discover this wasn’t the case, and Max Tegmark is fairly educated on the topic. What…

Reviewing the book masterpiece written by Douglas R. Hofstadter — I was really looking forward to this book, seeing it mentioned many times. It’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning book that explores the connections between mathematics, music, and intelligence through the works of mathematician Kurt Gödel, artist M.C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach. The intersection of fields alluded to directly in…

Reviewing the book ‘Fear and Trembling’ — I was very excited about this book, but at the same time, I was dreading it. I’ve read Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death before, which I found incredibly rewarding but also one of the most difficult intellectual tasks I had. I read Fear and Trembling only, despite my edition having the…

A book review of ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ by Heinrich Harrer — This book is written by Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer. He was caught in WW2 and was in a British internment camp in India. They later escaped the camp and traveled to Tibet. The first part of the book is their escape and travel, which is very difficult. Tibet, at…

Reviewing the book ‘Technological Slavery’ — ** Trigger warning alert ** This is the manifesto of K*czynski, an American domestic terrorist. He killed 3 people and injured 23 in a bombing campaign to draw attention to this anti-technology manifesto. He was arrested in 1996 and has 8 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. I do not condone his actions…

Reviewing “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi — Warning: This review contains spoilers This a memoir from Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon that is diagnosed with IV metastatic lung cancer. It starts by telling his life story in general that leads to his current position as a neurosurgeon. That part alone I already found incredibly enjoyable and worthwhile. However…

Reviewing her most famous philosophical work: “The Sovereignty of Good” — This work was harder than expected, and at times, I was quite lost without really grasping what Murdoch was trying to say. But I managed to grasp enough of it to make some coherence in her worldview, and I started to appreciate it the more time passed after I read…